The Motive

jack colvin

Actor Jack Colvin who I’ve “cast” in the role of my character Gene Ingram.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Gene?”

Gene Ingram was sitting in a rather uncomfortable office chair which had been placed in the temporal projection chamber, something that looked roughly like a hollowed out egg. At age 48, he had experienced his fair share of heartache and headache which was why he had to do this.

“No, Walter. I don’t want to do this at all, but he killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds more. Most of the time you Feds figure out who they are, what they are, why they did it, what they had for breakfast two years ago last Thursday, everything. With this one, you’ve turned up Nada. I’m your only hope…again.”

Walter Rice was the FBI’s Special Agent in charge of the latest mass murder, this one at a pro-NRA rally in Tampa Bay, Florida (an irony fully enjoyed by everyone who hates the NRA, Republicans in general, and the current President in particular). That was six months ago and in that time, the motives of Graham Jesse Booth were still a mystery. He was neither pro nor anti-gun, in spite of the fact that he had been surrounded by several automatic rifles and semi-automatic handguns when local law enforcement burst into his motel room just as he committed suicide. He was apolitical, only voted in three elections over a thirty year span. There were no indications of violent thoughts or posts in his Facebook and twitter accounts. As far as his family and friends knew, he was a perfectly ordinary and even boring married man, father of four, and grandfather of three.

A sweep of the hard drives from his desktop, laptop, tablet, and cell revealed nothing. Same with his work computers. This was something you wouldn’t think a CPA near retirement age capable of, and yet he had murdered 69 people in cold blood and put hundreds in the hospital before blowing his brains out with a 9 mm Glock.

Gene was right. He was their only hope of finding out why Graham Booth went from doting Grandpa to mass murderer.

“This’ll work just like before Gene. You won’t actually be traveling back in time…”

“I know, I know. Being the government’s top-secret pet psychic, my thoughts, my personality or whatever you want to call it will do the traveling, in this case back six months, four days, and an odd number of hours and into the head of the most infamous killer in the last decade. Sounds like a perfect vacation spot.”

Gene’s voice was, as the metaphor goes, dripping with sarcasm, but he always sounded that way. One of the effects of his particular talent was that it made him almost completely misanthropic. Except for assignments like this one, Ingram secluded himself in a small cabin in Idaho about forty miles from the nearest town, which was small. Supplies were delivered by drone. He didn’t want to be around human minds unless he had to, and he was paid very well for his services.

“I’ve told you this before, but you shouldn’t smoke in the…”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. The little techies don’t want their hardware contaminated with cigarette smoke. Too fucking bad.” Gene put the spent cigarette out on the metal floor crushing it with his heel. Walter picked up his Coke can, empty since he took the last swig a few minutes ago, stepped uncomfortably into the chamber, and then scooped up the butt from the floor and put it in the can.

“God, I’d hate to have to live with a neat freak like you. Can we get on with it? I want to get this over.”

Walter stepped back outside the chamber. At six-foot four and 275 pounds, it was awkward to get in and out of the chamber’s small access port, but he managed with a struggle. His wife was always nagging him to go back to the gym and lay off of the sodas and junk food, but over thirty years with the Bureau had taken its toll, especially since he had been assigned to be Ingram’s control for the last ten.

The FBI agent looked at the technicians who were calibrating their consoles or whatever they did to get the equipment ready. Twenty-eight year old Kristen Grant nodded her head without looking at Rice. “Just about there, Agent.”

She didn’t like the FBI, she didn’t like agents, and she particularly hated psychics (Gene hated her, too), but she loved being able to play with very expensive and absolutely top-secret time transfer equipment and get paid a six-figure salary for doing so.

She finally looked up at Walter. “We’re set. Billy, shut the door.”

Billy Ramos, one of Grant’s three technicians, stepped quickly toward the chamber. As he grabbed the hatch to close it, he took a quick look at “the subject.” That’s what most of the official documents even hinting at the existence of someone like Gene Ingram called him. He was “the subject,” the guinea pig, the experiment. The man whose mind could travel back in time, with a little help from technology of course.

“Hatch sealed, Kristen.”

She ignored Billy now that he’d done what she wanted and started playing around with a set of complicated switches and knobs on a complicated set of consoles and control boards.

“Chamber energized in three, two, one, and…”

Gene Ingram had been asked on a number of occasions what it was like being transferred in time. He never told anyone, not because it was indescribable, but because it was horribly painful.

Inside the “egg,” the light got brighter, brighter, brighter until it threatened to burn right through Gene’s tightly closed eyelids. There was no sound, but he could feel some sort of vibration, as if his body became a tuning fork. The worst part was the feeling of having his mind ripped from his head, synapses snapping like old rubber bands, like falling down an endless tunnel but never hitting bottom, like being alone in the universe (which for a few moments was appealing to Ingram), and then slammed into the body of an alien.

It took him a few seconds to get his bearings, not only because of the general disorientation caused by the transfer process, but because he was now seeing out of someone else’s eyes, hearing with someone else’s ears. Touching, feeling, sweating, farting, with someone else’s body.

“I’m here.”

Booth couldn’t hear him inside his head, but Ingram could still manage to speak, though somewhat like a delirious or drunk man, in his body in the chamber. Microphones picked up his voice, and speakers let him hear Rice’s questions and instructions.

“I’m right with you, Gene.” Walter spoke into the mike at his station. The communications console was the only piece of equipment in the lab Grant let him touch.

“Gimme a second. Trying to figure out what this Bozo is doing.”

Six months in the past in the mind and body of another man, Gene tried to figure out where Booth was and what he was doing. He couldn’t control Booth. Ingram was a passive observer, nothing more, but he could observe not only what Booth did but what he was thinking. That was the hard part, not because of any problem with Gene’s abilities, but he had to let down his guard, open himself up to the mind of a madman.

“Oh crap.”

“What’s wrong, Gene?”

“Booth’s head. It’s like being stuck in a wet burlap sack with six half drowned cats.”

“Men in their sixties do not suddenly have psychotic breaks, Gene. Are you saying he’s insane?”

“You ever try to drive in Paris or Rome during rush hour, Walter? It doesn’t make any sense and neither does Booth.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Loading guns. Lots and lots of guns. It’s just like the report said. He has six of ’em on tripods with scopes. That way he doesn’t have to change clips as often. He’s got it all planned out. Methodical.”

“I thought you said he was crazy, chaotic.”

“Not his methods, Walter. His motives. He’s planning to kill as many of those people across the road at the fairground as possible, but I’m not even sure he knows why. He just seems to hate those people.”

“That’s not what his official profile says, Gene.”

“People with his official profile don’t commit mass murder, Walter.”

“Is he still loading the rifles?”

“Nah, he finished. Now he’s pulling out those framed photos and setting them up around the room. There’s his wife, the one with her and their kids when they were little. Now the one of his grandkids. He’s crying, Walter. He’s actually crying.

“He’s touching their photo. Telling them how much he loves them, how he’ll miss them. I mean, I know he’s not drunk, but his thought process is way off. He’s looking at his watch. It’s just five minutes until he starts shooting.”

There was silence on both sides of the link for almost a minute and then, “Oh crap.”

“What is it Gene?”

“You missed someone. He’s thinking about her now.”

“Her who?”

“Louise…Marie…give me a sec. Yeah, Johnson. Louise Marie Johnson.”

Walter pulled his cell out of his jacket pocket, keyed in his password and let the phone use the Bureau’s facial recognition software to unlock the device. Then he did a search of the case files stored on the hard drive.

“Okay, yeah. Louise Marie Johnson. I’ve got her, Gene. She worked at the same firm as Booth did but she was fired about two years ago. Some sort of accounting error with one of their chief clients.”

“How about embezzling, Walter? Huh? How about Booth has been having an affair with her for over three years? Oh man, did you ever blow it.”

“Gene, there was no evidence of that kind of involvement between them.”

“They were careful, Walter. Booth travels several times a year on business, always to the same three cities.”

“Right. Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami.”

“All to work with high-end clients. She meets him at each one. Assumed name. Guess the charming wife at home got to be kind of stale.”

“But what does that have to do with…?”

“I’m getting to that, Walter. It’s tough but…yeah. He’s depressed, Walter. Booth is clinically depressed. Has been for years.”

“We got warrants for all his medical files, Gene. Nothing. He was in great shape when he died.”

“Autopsy missed something. Dig up the body, Walter. Run the pharmacology screens again. You’re looking for an anti-depressant, something his little girlfriend turned him on to. She was hooked on half a dozen prescription pills and was really good faking Doctors’ scripts.”

“He’s depressed? That’s why he killed all those people?”

“About to, Walter. I think it’s a drug reaction. Like maybe he’s allergic or something. Whatever it is, it’s messed with his head.”

“We didn’t find any medication in the room that night, at his home, office, nothing.”

“She took it with her.”

“What? Gene are you saying…?”

“The guns were all in his name, but she was in on it with him. She was the only one he could tell about the crazy stuff. It was her. Anti-gun protester since she was an undergrad at Berkeley. Oh God, Walter.”

“What’s wrong, Gene.”

“She lost a kid, a six-year-old son, that elementary school shooting about ten years back.”

“I remember it. Wait. Booth’s youngest grandson turned six earlier this year.”

“Right, Walter. About a month ago, a month before the murders. Walter! Walter get me out of here. He’s about to do it. He’s gonna shoot.”

“Grant, pull him back. Pull him back now.”

“I’m trying. It takes a minute or two. Billy, what the fuck is wrong with the retrieval program?”

“It’s caught in some sort of loop, Kristen. I’m clearing it now.”

“GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HIS HEAD RIGHT NOW!”

Those were the last coherent words Gene Ingram screamed. The rest was inarticulate gibberish until his psyche was retrieved and the temporal chamber’s power was cut. Then he passed out and collapsed on the floor.

The rest of the investigation went more or less quickly. Rice and a dozen special agents acquired all the necessary warrants and found all the records they needed not only to firmly establish Graham Booth’s motives, but to arrest Louise Johnson as an accessory to murder. Booth’s body was exhumed and additional tests for an uncommon anti-depressant revealed that Booth indeed had an atypical reaction to the medication, one that Johnson exploited to get what she thought of as justice.

Gene Ingram recovered what was left of his sanity and consciousness by the time he was taken back to his cabin in the Sawtooth mountains. His government doctors certified him fit to return to his solitary existence and so Walter Rice left him there. He hoped it would be a good long while before they’d need Gene’s services again. Walter would never know what went on inside Ingram’s brain, but he could see the haunted look in the psychic’s eyes. They were the eyes of a man who knows what it’s like to live inside of a murderous psychopath. He could feel his fingers pulling triggers, the pain from the burns caused by hot, automatic rifles, see the blood, the bodies, feel the rage, the drive, the desire to kill.

Booth had been firing at his victims for nearly two minutes before Ingram could be retrieved. Eugene August Ingram will remember the horror of those one hundred and sixteen seconds for the rest of his life.

There’s been a lot of speculation about the motive of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock in the news lately. Unlike most mass shooters, he didn’t leave behind any clear and obvious trail to why he committed his particularly horrendous crime.

I’ve looked at the various theories, raw guess-work most of it, and having a unique reaction to medication which caused an otherwise sane individual to commit insane acts was one of them. Unlike in my fiction, if this is the case, it’ll come out in the autopsy. I just leveraged that piece of information to construct my killer’s motive.

Everything I’ve written is fiction. It doesn’t relate directly to Paddock or anyone else. I decided to use a photo of the late actor Jack Colvin, best known for playing reporter Jack McGee on The Incredible Hulk (1977-1982) television series starring the late Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno (who is still very much alive). Colvin played McGee with a kind of driven “edginess” that, if extended quite a bit further, would fit Gene Ingram very well.

What would it be like to be trapped in the mind of a crazed killer at the exact moment when he starts to kill? That’s a question only someone like Gene Ingram can answer and he’s not talking.

15 thoughts on “The Motive

  1. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/24/trample-the-weak-hurdle-the-dead/
    NUGENT [an NRA board member]: Trample the weak, hurdle the dead

    No, really. I mean it. In a world of spineless, humorless political correctness, I suppose I could translate the title of my new love song and 2010 tour for the creatively challenged out there, and am certain it will make for some good reading. I like the line drawn in the sand.

    http://nraontherecord.org/ted-nugent/

    In an October 7, 2015 op-ed column for WND [WorldNetDaily] titled, “The Answer: Get A Damn Handgun,” Nugent spoke about mass shootings like the one that took place at Umpqua Community College on October 1, 2015.

    During a speech at the NRA Annual Meeting in Nashville on April 12, 2015, Nugent said the following:
    ……
    I cannot comprehend the soullessness of unarmed and helpless.
    ….
    Whatever we want is always the right thing.
    ……
    If your child is dying, and there’s only one way to get to the doctor, would you get on [Senate Minority Leader] Harry Reid’s boat to get there? Then your child’s dead. I’d get on the boat, get there, and then I’d shoot him.
    ……

    In a July 18, 2013 column on the website Rare.us, Nugent spoke about the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who was tried and acquitted of second degree murder in the shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012. Nugent stated, “Based on all evidence available to them, the professional law enforcement officers did not hold George Zimmerman on charges later that night. They saw it for what it was: cut and dried self-defense. And so it was for a few weeks until the race-baiting industry saw an opportunity to further the racist careers of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the Black Panthers. President [Barack] Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, et al, who then swept down on the Florida community refusing to admit that the 17-year-old dope smoking, racist gangsta wannabe Trayvon Martin was at all responsible for his bad decisions and standard modus operendi of always taking the violent route.” [For those hounding know, Zimmerman is not upstanding.]

    On May 7 2012, Christopher Hecker, whose last known address was in suburban Philadelphia, was charged with threatening to kill President Barack Obama after emailing the following threat: “I sent a bomb to the White House today and to several radio stations. Sooner or later I will grab someone, maybe in the woods, on the trail, and beat the life out of them.” Hecker also wrote, “[Obama] is the one that is destroying patriotism in the U.S.A. Ted Nugent is right. So, Obama is allowing me to be tortured to the point that I may murder someone, rather than deal with the mess he made. Your president is a coward.” Nugent had made national headlines just three weeks earlier after making threatening remarks toward the president and Democrats at the 2012 NRA convention in St. Louis. After being charged, Hecker pled no contest and asked to be sentenced to the death penalty immediately.

    During a live interview at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting on April 14, 2012, Nugent called the administration of President Barack Obama “vile,” “evil,” and “America-hating.” He also stated, “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” Continuing on the topic of the 2012 presidential elections, Nugent added, “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop [Democrats’] heads off in November. Any questions?” In the wake of Nugent’s comments, a spokesperson for the Secret Service confirmed that he had been placed under investigation. The campaign of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney—who sought and received Nugent’s endorsement—released a statement saying, “Divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from. Mitt Romney believes everyone needs to be civil.”

    In a July 28, 2011 op-ed for the Washington Times, Nugent commented on the National Educational Association (NEA) [the people who started a national reading celebration on “Dr. Seuss’s birthday” annually], the nation’s largest union, writing, “It’s not that our children are dumb, but rather that they are tossed into a dumb, antiquated system that is controlled by one of the largest and most powerful unions in the nation, the National Education Association.”

    Nugent, who was rejected by a draft board during the Vietnam War, claimed in a July 25, 2011 interview with Military.com that he has trained with the Navy Seals, Green Berets and Army Rangers in both an official and unofficial capacity since the late 1970s. Nugent claimed his military experience included “sniper work and some various combat type-training.” Referring to the administration of President Barack Obama [not the Trump/white era], Nugent said, “over my dead body will I let this current regime continue in their abuse of power.”

    During a featured speech at the 2011 NRA Convention, Nugent told the audience, “If it was up to me, if you uttered the word ‘gun control,’ we’d put you in jail.”

    Five days after a January 8, 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona left six dead and thirteen wounded (including Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords), Nugent authored a Washington Times op-ed stating, “I say conservatives should turn up the rhetoric … Political debate has always been spirited, hot and sometimes nasty.” He added, “In order to defeat liberals on the political-ideology battlefield, conservatives must be clear in purpose and then get after it by targeting (yes, I said targeting) and attacking Democratic nostrums that have weakened America.”

    During a concert on August 22, 2007, Nugent called then-Senator Barack Obama a “piece of shit” and then-Senator Hillary Clinton as a “worthless bitch.” Wielding an assault rifle in each hand, he suggested that Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein “suck on” his guns.

    In 1978, Nugent began dating a 17 year old girl when he was 30 years old. To avoid any legal repercussions, Nugent convinced the girl’s parents to sign over legal guardianship rights to him. The move was ranked #63 in a Spinmagazine list entitled, “The 100 Sleaziest Moments in Rock.”

    In an interview with High Times in October 1977, Nugent explained how he avoided being drafted for the Vietnam War: “So I got my notice to be in the draft. Do you think I was gonna’ lay down my guitar and go play army? Give me a break! I was busy doin’ it to it … I got my physical notice thirty days prior to. Well, on that day I ceased cleansing my body. No more brushing my teeth, no more washing my hair, no baths, no soap, no water. Thirty days of debris build. I stopped shavin’ and I was 18, had a little scraggly beard, really looked like a hippie. I had long hair, and it started gettin’ kinky, matted up. Then two weeks before, I stopped eating any food with nutritional value … Then a week before, I stopped going to the bathroom. I did it in my pants. poop, piss the whole shot. My pants got crusted up. See, I approached the whole thing like, Ted Nugent, cool hard-workin’ dude, is gonna wreak havoc on these imbeciles in the armed forces. I’m gonna’ play their own game, and I’m gonna’ destroy ‘em. Now my whole body is crusted in poop and piss. I was ill. And three or four days before, I started stayin’ awake. I was close to death, but I was in control. I was extremely anti-drug as I’ve always been, but I snorted some crystal methedrine. Talk about one wounded mother *****. A guy put up four lines, and it was for all four of us, but I didn’t know and I’m vacuuming that poop right up. I was a walking, talking hunk of human poop. I was six-foot-three of sin. So the guys took me down to the physical, and my nerves, my emotions were distraught. I was not a good person … So I went in, and those guys in uniform couldn’t believe the smell. They were ridiculin’ me and pushin’ me around and I was cryin’, but all the time I was laughin’ to myself. When they stuck the needle in my arm for the blood test I passed out, and when I came to they were kicking me into the wall. Then they made everybody take off their pants, and I did, and this sergeant says, ‘Oh my God, put those back on! You *****’ swine, you!’ Then they had a urine test and I couldn’t piss, but my poop was just like ooze, man, so I poop in the cup and put it on the counter. I had poop on my hand and my arm. The guy almost puked. I was so proud. I knew I had these chumps beat. The last thing I remember was wakin’ up in the ear test booth and they were sweepin’ up. So I went home and cleaned up. They took a putty knife to me. I got the street rats out of my hair, ate some good steaks, beans, potatoes, cottage cheese, milk. A couple of days and I was ready to kick ass. And in the mail I got this big juicy 4-F. They’d call dead people before they’d call my ass. But you know the funny thing about it? I’d make an incredible army man. I’d be a colonel before you knew what hit you, and I’d have the baddest bunch of motherfuckin’ killers you’d ever seen in my platoon. But I just wasn’t into it. I was too busy doin’ my own thing, you know?” A Selective Service form that chronicles Nugent’s draft history can be viewed here.

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  2. I don’t know if he was part of a convention prior to 2005 — looks like maybe that was the start.
    https://www.thetrace.org/2016/04/ted-nugent-absent-nra-convention-2016/
    Under fire for his latest anti-Semitic and racist rants, the rocker isn’t listed on the program.

    …. for the first time in 12 years, the speaker lineup does not include NRA board member Ted Nugent…

    Nugent has long served as a main attraction at the group’s convention, signing autographs and giving presentations to hordes of adoring fans. In the run-up to last year’s meeting, Nugent was billed as a “special event” unto himself, along with programs like the 2015 Prayer Breakfast, the Annual Meeting of Members, and the Youth Leadership Conference.

    ……
    [Took over a decade after 2005 to question how useful he was as a headliner at the conventions, when he had already been a mess before 2005 too (see earlier post, and more below)].
    These examples below are from the link I shared in a previous post, above:
    During a featured speech at the 2005 NRA Convention, Nugent told the audience, “Remember the Alamo! Shoot ’em!
    ….”

    In 2004, Nugent was sued for child support by a woman he fathered a child with while married to his current wife. During the proceedings, the woman’s lawyer accused Nugent of “trying to intimidate his client into withdrawing questions about Nugent’s finances.” In 2005, Nugent was ordered to pay $3,500 a month in child support.

    Regarding controversial comments he made during an April 2000 concert in Houston, Texas, Nugent explained, “What I said is, ‘If you can’t speak English, get the fuck out of America.’ Spurred by a first-person, hands-on, eyewitness experience in America, where I’ve gone to enough fuckin’ convenience stores where the cocksucker behind the counter can’t translate ‘doughnut’ for me. I never mentioned the word ‘Hispanics.’ I never mentioned the word ‘Mexicans.’ I never mentioned the word ‘Latinos.’ I never mentioned the words ‘Spanish language.’ I merely said, ‘If you can’t speak English, get the fuck out of America.”

    During a 2000 concert in Greenville, South Carolina, Nugent addressed an ongoing controversy concerning the flying of the Confederate flag at South Carolina’s statehouse by telling the audience, “Those politically correct motherfuckers can take the flag down but I am going to wear it forever.”

    In a 1995 interview with Bob Mack for Grand Royal magazine, Nugent suggested that “real America” is populated by “working hard, playing hard white mother fuckin’ shit kickers who are independent” and challenged the host to name a similar black American. Nugent later used the N-word and said, “The black guys with this rap, electronic, make-believe, talentless music makes me want to throw up.”

    While guest DJing for WRIF in Detroit, Michigan, in 1992, commented about a previous encounter with a Hare Krishna, saying, “In my mind, I’m going, ‘Why can’t I just shoot this guy in the spine right now, shoot him in the spine, explain the facts of life to him?’”

    Interviewed in late 1992 on WRIF-FM in Detroit, Michigan, Nugent referred to animal rights activist Heidi Prescott as a “worthless whore” and “shallow slut” before asking, “Who needs to club a seal, when you could club Heidi?”

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  3. It’s scary to think a mass killer could be motivated by a new onset of mental illness. People already feel vulnerable to the danger, but it’s worse if it could happen to anyone.

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  4. http://www.news.com.au/national/stephen-paddock-adam-le-fevre-tells-of-his-time-with-the-las-vegas-shooter/news-story/c688cbe4ec17354669f08eec8537765d

    ……

    Mr Le Fevre had been in a relationship with the sister of Marilou Danley, Paddock’s partner.

    He was introduced to Paddock in 2013 when they both travelled to the Philippines. Later, he met up with him on a trip to Las Vegas.

    “Steve was very generous because of his success in high rolling. I would say I had no reason not to like him,” Mr Le Fevre said.

    Then came the Las Vegas massacre earlier this week.

    “The first reaction was shock, disbelief and then of course not long after I realised I had this association with this terrible, terrible tragedy.”

    ….

    RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS
    Mr Le Fevre said he noticed Paddock became very defensive when asked about the US constitutional rights to bear arms.

    “I raised that question with Steve and it’s something that he came back at me with an incredible degree of vigour,” Mr Le Fevre said.

    “He was very strict and very firm on the fact that it’s a right. It’s the freedom of every American to participate, to own a gun and use it … when need be. I was shocked. There was no compassion in regard to my question.”

    Paddock was insistent: “That law should never be changed”.

    Mr Le Fevre said he chose not to pick an argument. “When in Rome, be respectful,” he told A Current Affair.

    ……

    FAMILY MATTERS
    Mr Le Fevre told Nine he did not regard Paddock’s relationship with Marilou to be a loving one.

    “I saw him talk to her abruptly and Liza and I had questions,” he said.

    Marilou seemed very nervous and jittery around Paddock.

    “He would talk to her in a condescending way at times, and while I was concerned, I was prepared to dismiss it as that’s his nature.”

    ……

    http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/las-vegas-shooting-stephen-paddocks-girlfriend-reveals-how-he-lay-in-bed-moaning-and-screaming/news-story/f8c5a5235b6df66ee46143ff6ba5ea69
    ……

    A former worker at the Atlantis Casino Resort and Spa in Reno, Nevada, where Las Vegas shooter Paddock frequently gambled, said he had a “god complex” and expected quick service no matter how busy employees were.

    ……

    MILLIONAIRE SHOOTER WAS ‘CHEAPSKATE’
    Paddock may have spent huge sums to amass his arsenal, but often spent just $US3.50 for a meal.

    ……

    “He’s been coming in at least a year and when I first saw him I thought he was a homeless person, he was unshaven, dishevelled, quiet — he wasn’t a big conversationalist,” he said.

    Blake added that Paddock’s odd behaviour was not unusual in the gambling town.

    “A lot of people who heavily gamble are like that, they’re in a world of their own,” he said. “They don’t get a chance to have much of a social life. Stephen didn’t seem to me like he was in to anything else other than deep thinking of how he was going to play his next poker game.”
    [Then there’s a quick, informative video on a few laws at the end.]

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